Russia's Food Supply

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

December 26, 1991

I READ the letter to the editor by Carla Novak regarding food for Russia a mere three hours after I had raised the same question with my son, who lives in England and travels to Russia for his employer. According to my son, meat is easier, not easy, to obtain in Moscow than are vegetables. He stays in a five-star hotel, paid for by his company, where they can get anything that is available for hard currency. Yet on the last occasion he was there, the kitchen could not find him a potato anywhere.

My son is of the opinion that thousands will die of starvation in Russia because there is no way to distribute food to so many people. Even if it were possible for trucks to be made available by other European countries, gasoline in Russia is of too low a grade to run them, and if the trucks were to break down, no parts are available. Airlifting would be a logistical nightmare in such an enormous country, even if there were enough planes available. Remember the Berlin air lift? And that was just after the war, when thousands of bombers and pilots were available.

We must do our utmost to feed as many starving as we can, not only in Russia, but elsewhere, but I agree with Novak that meat is not necessary or even desirable in this endeavor.